Canadian Politics

A14 - Candidates and Representatives

Date: May 31 | Time: 03:45pm to 05:15pm | Location: Classroom - CL 420 Room ID: 15718

Chair/Président/Présidente : Royce Koop (University of Manitoba)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Kelly Blidook (Memorial University of Newfoundland)

Avoiding the Spotlight: Public Scrutiny Fears and Political Candidacy in Canada: Angelia Wagner (University of Alberta)
Abstract: Descriptive representation in Canadian legislatures remains an elusive goal. Research has typically focused on demand-side factors related to recruitment, selection, and election that keep different groups from succeeding in politics and, to a lesser extent, on supply-side factors such as political ambition that keep them from running in the first place. Challenges remain in these areas, but they do not fully explain why women and minorities do not make up an equitable share of candidates who run for, and win, elected office. Semi-structured interviews with about 100 candidates and non-candidates from different social, ideological, and geographical locations suggest that fears surrounding public scrutiny—and the moral regulation of non-traditional lifestyles and attitudes that often underline it—are leading many women and minorities to opt out of a career in politics despite a deep interest in public affairs. The current era of hyper partisanship, media sensationalism, and online incivility not only makes this surveillance harder to avoid but increases the costs to one’s reputation and mental well-being if found wanting. Not everyone avoids the political spotlight, though. This paper takes a feminist intersectional approach to illustrate the complexities of public scrutiny and its role in the decision-making process to become, or not become, a candidate. By exploring the reasons why some women and minorities choose to avoid the political spotlight, this study identifies a previously overlooked barrier to their involvement in electoral politics and advances our knowledge on the factors shaping the candidate emergence process in Canada.

Who Runs for Office and Why? Political Candidates and Indigenous Self-Governments in Canada: Christopher Alcantara (The University of Western Ontario), Nicole McMahon (The University of Western Ontario)
Abstract: Over the last fifty years, a number of Indigenous communities in Canada have negotiated and implemented self-government arrangements through the federal comprehensive land claims and self-government processes. While scholars have written numerous analyses describing these negotiations and the formal structures produced by them, virtually nothing has been written on the kinds of individuals that run for political office once these governance structures are put into place. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by examining the motivations and range of candidates that ran for political office in the 2014 Nunatsiavut election, an Inuit political community in northern Labrador created through the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement in 2005. In particular, we examine whether existing theories (Fox and Lawless 2005; Lawless 2012; Carroll and Sanbonmatsu 2010) that focus on individual/psychological and environmental/contextual factors are applicable to Indigenous political contexts rooted in self-government and land claims agreements. To test these theories, we qualitatively analyze a broad range of data from the 2014 Nunatsiavut election, including 19 interviews with candidates that ran for the office of Ordinary Member. Ordinary Members are the elected representatives that sit in the Nunatsiavut Assembly, which is the legislative assembly of the region. Through this analysis, we aim to better understand the political representation in Aboriginal communities with formal self-government agreements.

“Legal Aid for Stuff you can’t get Legal Aid for”: Constituency Role Orientations among MLAs in Nova Scotia: Louise Cockram (Carleton University)
Abstract: Springtide’s Off Script project draws on the experiences of politicians in the Nova Scotia legislative assembly. Based on 35 semi-structured interviews with former MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), our findings paint a revealing picture of political representation in Atlantic Canada. Most of the respondents told us that they prioritized constituency service work over other elements of their career (e.g. speaking in the assembly, reading legislation). Constituency service work refers to front-end service provision conducted for constituents by elected representatives or their staff. Constituency service work can be categorized into two parts: 1) helping constituents navigate existing government services 2) providing services directly to constituents. Constituency service work is an element of political careers across Canada and at different levels of government. However, it appears that Nova Scotia is a unique case as MLAs feel that constituency service work is the most important component of their role. In our interviews, we heard stories of MLAs who provided low-income constituents with food, helped to pursue Workers’ Compensation Claims and filed tax returns. Some MLAs compared their role to poverty law practice or social work. Drawing on Donald Searing’s (1994) work on political role orientations, our presentation at the 2018 Canadian Political Science Association conference will discuss our project findings. Additionally, our presentation will puzzle why constituency service work is so important to MLAs in Nova Scotia, as well as theorize what constituency service work means for political representation in Nova Scotia and Canada as a whole.